At Ziba: A celebration of Lawrence and Anna Halprin presented by the Halprin Conservancy

Back in the days when Portland's political process was less complicated, in the 1960s and '70s, the city's leaders weren't afraid to give someone else the upper hand.

One such bright mind given immense license to express himself was the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, who died Oct. 25 at age 93. Between 1963 and 1970, Halprin and his firm designed a sequence of plazas in Portland that helped shape the city's use of public space, as well as furthering the idea of landscape urbanism. At the behest of Gov. Tom McCall, Halprin also produced The Willamette Valley study, a crucial forecast of Oregon's future, completed in 1972.

Halprin's legacy, his inspiring collaborations with his wife, choreographer Anna Halprin, and the power of collective wisdom will be celebrated today at Ziba's World Headquarters.

Presented by The Halprin Landscape Conservancy, a nonprofit composed of architects, critics and landscape advocates founded to preserve Halprin's legacy, the event sounds like a gently rousing happening from the '60s. Commissioner Nick Fish will speak. A new book on Halprin's Portland plazas, "Where the Revolution Began: Lawrence and Anna Halprin and the Reinvention of Public Space," will debut, with all proceeds benefiting the conservancy.

Several dancers will perform, including Linda K. Johnson and Linda Austin, along with musician Ron Blessinger of Third Angle Ensemble, all of whom collaborated on a 2008 tribute to the Halprins performed in the plazas. A new documentary of that performance also will be screened. The public is invited to attend the free event.

Randy Gragg, former architecture critic for The Oregonian, board member of the Halprin Conservancy and editor of the new book, says the event is more than a happening and fundraiser. It's one way for Portlanders to envision the city's future through insight drawn from the past -- in this case, Halprin's achievements.

"His work is a story about the rediscovery of public space here and what it should mean," says Gragg, who contributes an essay to the book along with Stanford University dance director Janice Ross and John Beardsley, a noted landscape expert from Harvard University.

Changing public spaces Before Halprin's plazas, downtown Portland had two public spaces: the South Park Blocks and Ankeny Square.

After World War II, Portlanders moved out of the city to the suburbs. But in the late '40s, a federal movement to revitalize languishing neighborhoods was born. The Portland Development Commission was created as part of it in 1958. Its first task was the creation of the South Auditorium Project.

More than 50 downtown blocks were cleared in this sweeping renewal project that brought together the legendary architecture firm of Skidmore Owings Merrill and a rising landscape architect, Lawrence Halprin

Gragg writes in the book that while some of Halprin's greatest projects would not be completed until later -- Ghiradelli Square in San Francisco, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., among them -- Halprin was given extraordinary authority by Ira Keller, the head of the PDC and perhaps the most powerful individual in Portland.

Halprin responded with a sequence of downtown fountains and plazas -- Lovejoy Plaza, Pettygrove Park, Forecourt Fountain and the Source Fountain -- during seven years. With their brilliant, seamless integration of urban and natural spaces, the Portland Open Space Sequence eventually helped cement Halprin's reputation as one of the most significant landscape architects of the late 20th century.

They also signified a humanistic approach to urban space in Portland, namely that people should have spaces to live in and enjoy. That legacy endures in the public spaces made recently, such as Jamison Square and Tanner Springs Park.

"That conversation doesn't happen here without Halprin," Gragg says.

Inspired partnershipApart from artistry, the plazas represent something more ephemeral: a spirit in transition.

Halprin made his plazas at a time when one powerful individual such as Keller wielded extraordinary clout, a time when the political process was less inclusive and divided. But a time when the city was generally open-minded, too.

Opening of Forecourt FountainWhile turmoil and student marches engulfed cities and college campuses around the country in the '60s, for example, Halprin's plazas became a place where everyone somehow got along. At the 1970 opening of Forecourt Fountain, Halprin made a now-famous speech that pacified tensions between police, hippies and others on hand just weeks after the Kent State University shootings. Such moments helped give Portland its reputation as a progressive city.

Of course, Halprin didn't work alone. He had his firm and other collaborators. Most of all, he had his wife, Anna, a choreographer who spurred and challenged him. Dance expert Ross' essay in the new book and the 2008 tribute performance that Johnson, Blessinger and Gragg created celebrate how the socially experimental works of Anna Halprin pushed and informed her husband's designs and ideas about urban dwelling. Without her, the plazas would also lose a little of their lyric beauty, a dimension that could only have been elevated by a collaboration between the husband and wife.

For Gragg and the conservancy, reflecting on the Halprins, the plazas and what happened more than 40 years ago will, one hopes, spur activity to preserve the plazas. One part of the plan is to get landmark status for the plazas.

Meanwhile, Oregonians and Portlanders will have a chance today to embrace and think about how the past is prologue.

"The past writes the future," Gragg says. "Nostalgia is wishing things could be the way they used to be. This is about the constant reinvention of your core identity."

The event is at Ziba's World Headquarters, 1044 N.W. 9th Ave. It's free and begins at 2 p.m.